At the present time there exists a great variety of gambling games and gambling machines. So-called roulette playing apparatuses constitute a large group of these machines. In general, a roulette-type machine consists of a roulette wheel having a plurality of circumferentially arranged recesses for receiving a playing ball which is thrown onto the rotating wheel manually by a croupier in the direction of rotation of the roulette wheel. The speed of the rotation of the disk decreases and, when the disk is finally stopped, the playing ball falls into the nearest recess. Each recess has a predetermined number that defines the value of the win.
With the development of computers, microprocessor-controlled roulette playing devices came into use. One such apparatus is described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,643,425 issued on Feb. 17, 1987 to M. Herzenberger. This apparatus comprises, a box-like body, a roulette wheel rotatingly installed in the body and including a plurality of numbered sectors, an electric motor for driving the wheel, launching assembly to be operated by a player to launch a ball into the roulette wheel, a playing selecting keyboard to be actuated by the player for defining the stake value, and a ball position sensing optical encoder for sensing the position of the ball on the roulette wheel. The apparatus also has an inlet channel for introducing tokens in order to set stake value, a token supplying hopper for supplying a predetermined number of tokens in the case of a win by the player, and a microprocessor circuit operatively coupled to all of the aforementioned elements for controlling their operation.
The apparatus of U.S. Pat. No. 4,643,425 is designed for participation in the game of several players simultaneously. Even though an individual may play alone, another player may come and join the game. In some cases, however, a player wants to play privately without the presence of other people. This is because the gambling that involves spending money may be associated with emotional factors such as superstition. In other cases the gambling machine may be located in a limited space where there is no enough room for several people.
Another disadvantage of the aforementioned device is that launching of the ball is performed manually and the force that expels the ball depends purely on the manual manipulations of the player. This means that after gaining an experience with the gambling machine, the player may control his/her launching effort to control the hit of the ball. Although it is not easy but is possible to some extent.
The apparatus of U.S. Pat. No. 4,643,425 has a keyboard token input which does not allow to use all possible combinations of betting, e.g., placing a token in a common point of two or four adjacent betting marks. What is meant is a case when a token is placed on a common side of two adjacent betting marks or in a point that covers four corners of four betting marks at the same time.
If the apparatus is not rigidly secured, it can be accidentally or intentionally shaken during movement of the ball, and this will change the result. The apparatus of U.S. Pat. No. 4,643,425 has no means for disabling the results of such an unforeseen action. In other words, the aforementioned apparatus involves a human factor that affects the results of the game.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,906,005 issued to K. Manabe in 1990 discloses a roulette-type gambling machine in which the launching of the ball and the results of the hit are fully automated and are free of the effect of the human factor on the results of the game. This machine includes an automatic ball launching device consisting of a pair of disks rotating in opposite directions with a ball between them. As a result, the ball is expelled onto a rotating wheel while spinning around its own axis. A release device for feeding a ball to the hitting device comprises a blower for sending forth air to the outlet through a release passage upstream of the outlet. The apparatus also has a feeder for feeding balls one by one to the release passage. Such arrangement enables the ball released on the circular runway to be accelerated thereon. The roulette wheel is rigidly fixed to the output shaft of a motor that rotates the roulette wheel.
A provision of the blower makes the machine complicated in structure, and the return of the balls to the hitting device is unreliable. The roulette wheel is rigidly connected to the shaft of the drive motor. This means that if a very experienced and technically knowledgeable fraudster can manage to control the speed of rotation of the motor with a sophisticated remote-control device, he/she would be able to control the results of the game. Furthermore, this machine does not exclude other players from participation in the game played by a single player. The description of U.S. Pat. No. 4,906,005 does not teach the way of betting but only describes the operation of the mechanisms of the machine.